Dogon Hair Pin Depicting Female Figure with Arms Raised, Based

Nearby, a narrow shaft crowned with a face inside a tall pointed loop.

This hair pin depicting a female figure with arms raised is Dogon, from Mali, West Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is iron. Dogon art often repeats a few themes, such as figures with raised arms, kneeling figures and animals such as lizards, which are generally linked to local beliefs and stories. Seen plainly, a thin dark metal pin on a square black stand, swelling slightly at a banded collar near the middle. At the top a small face sits within a tall, narrow, upswept frame that ends in a tiny knob. It is 2 inches wide, 2 deep and 7 high.

Thin as a pencil and twice as sure of itself.